PLAY| “Knallfunken is a two-channel radiophonic work realized in collaboration with the Nauen shortwave transmitter in Brandenburg (the world's oldest continuously operating radio broadcaster) and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The earth and its atmosphere are a gigantic electrical habitat. Knallfunken is a literal circuit patched through diverse locales such as charged coils, sparking copper, tropical lightning, migratory cranes, swarming bees, 250 kW voltage, Central Asian & South American ground, New Zealand antennas, ionospheric refraction and autumn wind. Knallfunken revisits the miniaturized lightning of wireless telegraphy in order to listen to entanglements of its sparks. This piece sounds the material context of spark-gap transmissions through the site of long-range broadcasting (shortwave). The piece is entirely constructed from the signals, murmurs, clacks and resonances encountered along the circuit pathway, where electricity is patched through vastly divergent gaps, from the distance between two conductive wires to the distance between Brandenburg and the other side of the globe.” This project was made possible with support from the Mondriaan Fund. In 2019, it was awarded the French radio art award Prix Phonurgia Nova. Raviv Ganchrow, an artist and theoretician based in Amsterdam, considers “Knallfunken” the last part of a trilogy dealing with the materiality of broadcasting. The other parts are "Radio Plays itself" produced in 2013 by ORF Kunstradio, and „Forecast for Shipping“, Links: Essay on “Knallfunken” by Raviv Ganchrow Essay über „Knallfunken“ von Raviv Ganchrow Prix Phonuriga Nova |
